


Funhouse Mirror

by AriesDraco



Series: Creative Indecency [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Auto-Cannibalism, Bittersweet Ending, Cruelty to Animals, Extremely Graphic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Is that what you kids call it these days, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Not Safe For Sanity, Post-Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sausages, To An Extent, Torture, Whump, do you enjoy being tortured, i cannot recommend you read this, mention of watersports, questioning your sanity, selective mutism, something like a fever dream, suggestions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-02 22:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriesDraco/pseuds/AriesDraco
Summary: In which Roman keeps accidentally stumbling onto Remus and Deceit having increasingly bizarre intercourse and assumes that they are trolling him into insanity. It's not like that.Note: Please take the tags very, very, very seriously. It does get better from chapter 5.And I'm finally done. I don't know how much I like it, or if this is something one should claim to "like", but it is done.





	1. I was blind

**Author's Note:**

> I had to get it out of my head somehow. Even if it's at once, at 2am in the morning.

All was not well. After the Duke’s little visit, everyone had been left shaken. Except perhaps Logan. Or maybe not even, considering how he would suddenly smile and give a fond little sigh and whisper to himself, “He thinks I’m cool,” while in the middle of doing literally anything. Reading an encyclopedia of astronomy, pouring a glass of orange juice, walking from room to room: pause, sigh, smile. It would have been endearing if it didn’t somehow grate on his nerves.

The thing about funhouse mirrors is, no matter how horrifying the image, you are still looking at yourself, and when you tilt your head a certain way, you suddenly recognise the distortion overlaid on your own image, and recognise what could have been, what might yet be. And the echoes still resonated in his being, filling him with an irrational hatred for Logic.

He took a deep breath.

Since everyone was still on edge, it meant that Virgil was triply, quadruply on edge, even if emokid was trying not to show it and dutifully doing breathing exercises, and Virgil on edge meant hypervigilance, and his attempt to calm himself did not go unnoticed, haunted eyes shooting him a sharp look.

“Something wrong, Roman?” asked Virgil, his breath a bit too quick, voice barely tinged with the reverberant echo which usually meant he was about to lose it. But he’d been getting better at that too, especially after the dressing down by Logan, and he didn’t appear so much suspicious as concerned. But also suspicious, because Anxiety gotta Anxiety, after all.

He was going to brush it off, but instead, he heard himself say, “I hate him,” and watched the frown darken the shadows on Virgil’s face. Hate was a strong word, and hate was not his word, and he had to scrub at his face and attempt to compose himself again. It was like having a hangover. “I’m” not “fine,” he managed in the end, even managing a bit of a princely smile. “I just need some time. To detox. You know.”

Virgil squinted at him, then went through another cycle of breathing exercises before cocking his head slightly in the way he always did when trying to figure something out. It made Roman uncomfortable, to be looked at as though he was a problem, but then Virgil shrugged almost imperceptibly. “Take care,” was all he said in the end before reaching out, reconsidering it, pulling his arm back and shuffling off awkwardly.

He had to look at least as bad as he felt to get that kind of sympathy from Virgil. Which was unbecoming for a prince. Which was why he gave up on being in public and retreated to his room.

Which was where he found Remus passionately screwing Deceit into the carpet.

He stared blankly at the pair of them as his mind tried desperately not to process the scene in front of him. 

Deceit, head down, ass up, still fully dressed, down to that bowler hat, except for where his pants had been pulled down slightly. His face was obscured, buried in his folded arms as his body rocked to the erratic timing of the thrusts. Remus had apparently elected to remove his pants entirely, but kept his socks, shoes and top on. He was also, for some reason, enthusiastically fellating a stick of deodorant. 

“Oo… someone’s back early,” said his brother with the brightest, most shit-eating grin, tossing aside the deodorant. “Would you like to join me in Deceit?”

“WhywouldIwantodothat?” He may have shrieked a little towards the end of that statement, but to be fair, he’d just walked in on Remus passionately screwing Deceit into the carpet. His carpet. It was a sight he would never be able to unsee. “GET OUT.”

“Poop.”

And then they were gone, leaving him alone in his room with his racing heart and racing thoughts. What the heck had just happened? What the heck was that? He… he must have been hallucinating. Yes. His brother had been very annoying, he’d been hit in the head twice already, and he was. Hallucinating. Of course. There was no way. 

He blinked, very slowly, as if expecting them… the hallucination to return, and sighed in relief when there was nothing but his room. And the carpet. And the blood on the carpet. Well, that’ll wash out, he thought hysterically, and there would be no trace of what he’d just seen.

He threw it out instead. Eventually. After he’d calmed down enough to go from panic to anger. How dared they do that in the sanctity of his room, invading his space like that? Dark sides or otherwise, it was unacceptable! He would give them a piece of his mind when he next saw them!

When he next saw them, it was far, far too soon for his tastes. How he next saw them went something like this:

As he was rounding the corner to go down the stairs, he spied a familiar black bowler hat just peeking out around the corner. That black bowler hat was perched on the head of one two-faced Dark Side, and said head was tilted all the way back, exposing a very pale neck that was similarly half-covered in scales. His lips were parted but his eyes were scrunched up shut, until they weren’t, and those mismatched eyes caught his. Deceit looked like he was about to speak, but an unseen action caused him to gasp and grimace and Roman did NOT want to know.

But he had to go down the stairs. Also whatever was going on had to stop. For goodness sake, this was in public!

He didn’t want to be right but he was, finding Remus crouched on the stairs together with Deceit.

“Look, I made Deceit a hand puppet!” declared his brother and Roman wished he hadn’t looked at where Remus’s hand was. “He’s extra juicy now.”

Before he could say another word, they were both gone again, and he was rushing to the nearest toilet to throw up. 

He was going mad. Oh boy. He hadn’t just seen that. He hadn’t just seen that, he hadn’t just seen that, he hadn’t just seen that. It was just. Echoes. Only echoes. 

“Did you put on eyeshadow again?” asked Patton, grinning too widely at him for any sane person. No. What was he thinking. Patton was always like that. Passion was good, happiness was good. Naivety was good, obliviousness was good. No. That was mean, he wasn’t. Well sometimes. But he wasn’t mean spirited. Except when he was. 

Roman rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t seen anything again after that previous… incident, but his nerves were shot. It didn’t help that he was still feeling the echoes from being overlaid on top of/below his brother. It was odd, though. The echoes usually didn't last so long. He would have been back to his normal cheery self and conveniently forgotten that he ever had a brother by now. 

“You alright, Roman?” asked Patton, no longer grinning. 

“I’m…” hallucinating. “I guess I’m still feeling like Remus is about to show up at any time.” It was true, tangentially, because Remus himself wasn’t the problem. 

“Well, don’t you worry. At least now we know what to do, or what not to do when he does, right?” Patton gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, apparently having forgotten that he’d been passed out on the floor during the last dilemma and therefore did not know what to do. Still, they were brothers, and he was sure that he could handle it, if it were just a Remus problem.

It wasn’t just Remus, though it was Remus, sitting down next to Deceit, slowly and methodically pushing his fingers into Deceit’s human eye, squeezing the eyeball out of its socket, intact, hanging by the optic nerve. Then he squeezed it some more until it exploded, sending vitreous humour splattering everywhere, mixing with the blood trickling down Deceit’s face.

“Well, there’s your contact lens!” declared Remus, cackling madly. “Oh, wait, no, that’s just your eyeball lens.”

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“What?” asked Remus, licking a trail up the human side of Deceit’s face, catching the blood and vitreous humour on his tongue. “We’re going to play pirates and prostitutes!”

As Roman stared aghast, Deceit looked up at him with one serpentine eye and one empty, bleeding eye socket. And licked his lips.

And they were gone, and now he knew they were actively trying to drive him to madness. 

Which was a mistake. Because it made them villains. Because he was the hero. And now that he knew what they were planning, he was prepared. He would vanquish them like he’d vanquished the dragon witch. Because heroes always win. And everything will be fine again, except that he’d never stop needing brain bleach to get the images out of his head.

It felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he almost felt joyous again. Exuberant even. Everything made sense again and he was fine.

He was fine.

He was fine when he walked in on Remus taking a piss on Deceit’s face. He was fine when he stumbled upon them playing operation, Deceit’s organs strewn across the floor (“Oh, so that’s what a spleen looks like!”). He was mildly unsettled when he found them apparently roleplaying Patton and Virgil (“Oh Princey, come join me and Daddy. You know I love being given 2 Ds at once. Spank me harder, Daddy!”). He was downright disturbed when he found them with the dogs (“Haven’t you ever wondered what it’d feel like to be knotted?), and he was definitely not fine when he walked in on the aftermath of Remus “Just trying to make a centaur in about, what’s the gestation period of horses?”

“How are you okay with this?” he asked Deceit, who was collapsed on the floor, breathing shallowly, pupils dilated until all that Roman could see was darkness.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Deceit responded.

“The question is, Princey,” rasped the serpentine Dark Side, “how are *you* okay with this?” 

“I’m not!” But he was protesting to thin air. Again.

He didn’t see them again for the next week. And then another. It should have made him feel better not to have to be subjected to such sights, but instead, he was all jittery. Paranoia was not his jam (his jam was Crofter’s), but he couldn’t help but feel like they were setting up for something. Something big. Something terrible.

In the third week, he cracked and spent the week searching every nook and cranny of the mindscape to no avail: Deceit could stay hidden whenever he wanted to, after all. By the end of the week, it was blatantly obvious that something was seriously wrong with him and his friends decided to stage an intervention.

“Alright, spill.”

“What, no, Virgil, why would you want him to make a mess? He should be drinking the water to rehydrate himself and not wasting it by spilli…” “No, that’s not what I…”

“Roman, kiddo, what’s wrong?”

They were all so concerned, but he could hardly tell them about what he had seen. What he’d been forced to watch. It would scar them all for life. Instead, he said, “I haven’t seen Remus or Deceit in three weeks.”

He felt rather than saw Virgil’s head snap around so fast it was amazing he didn’t get whiplash. 

“We haven’t seen either of them in the past three months.” He could almost see the cogs churning away in that dark little noggin of his, racing to jump to conclusions. “Why were you hanging out with them?”

“I wasn’t.” It came out nearly like a hiss, startling all four of them and Roman had to calm himself, head in hands. “It’s like they’ve been stalking me and then suddenly, they’ve stopped.”

“Stalking you? Oh Roman, did they do anything to you? Are you alright? You should have told us earlier!”

“It is highly irregular behaviour for the Duke to persist in pestering you for such a period of time, but you do know he gets bored and gives up after some time.”

Roman stifled an entirely inappropriate laugh. “Oh, I think he was very well entertained,” he spat. He was so tired. And also startled when Virgil grabbed his face, shadowed eyes searching his.

“What do you mean?” asked Virgil from about 2 inches away. “You said ‘they’ have been stalking you as if they were doing it together.”

“Oh, they were definitely doing *it* together.” Just recalling it made him want to claw his eyes out, except that he now knew what that looked like and never wanted to experience it. 

He didn’t think Virgil could get any paler than he already was. 

“We need to find him.” “Indeed, who knows what dastardly deeds the two of them are plotting? I do not like that b-hole at all.” “No, Patton, I do not think Virgil means the Duke.”

“What?” The pieces were there, but holy heck, three months of constant badgering had taken its toll on his mental faculties and the shape of the whole was just tantalising out of sight.

“We need to save him.”

And then it clicked.

“Roman, when and where did you last…?”

And he left.

The thing about funhouse mirrors was that it made you try to recognise yourself. He knew, he had known, hadn’t wanted to know, exactly where they were. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the echo that caused their paths to cross again and again and again. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that he’d kept finding them because he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to look upon the forbidden, as a reminder of what not to be, he lied to himself. He’d just wanted… to see.

Except that he’d failed at that as well.

Sword in hand, he slammed the side of the blade against his brother’s head and watched him crumple like a wet tissue. Kneeling beneath him, Deceit choked violently, semen spilling from his mouth and nose.

Roman conjured up a silk handkerchief (in yellow), which Deceit accepted to clean himself up at least a little. When he dropped it twice on account of how much his hands were shaking, Roman took over for him.

“You are amazingly early, Princey,” whispered Deceit, voice utterly ruined, before he, too, collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girlfriend, who introduced the series to me, pointed to The Duke and went, I thought you'd like him. 
> 
> "Like" is a very strong word. I'd go more with, I'm familiar with such an entity, in my mind, constantly randomly assaulting me with gruesome images and politely requesting I jump off the overhead bridges or walk into traffic. 
> 
> I do like snakeyboi though. Though, once again, "like" is a strong word for, I am very familiar with such an entity in my mind. I hope he feels better.


	2. But now I see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus exposits, Roman listens, Deceit remains silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was brought to you by the letter D. You know the one. The only. Dukey.
> 
> I'm trying my best to exorcise him but well.

It felt like he was on the verge of waking up from a terrible nightmare, in that moment between waking and sleep, where dreams and reality blurred together and you remembered enough of the nightmare to wonder if you want to remember it all, or to forget altogether. It felt like a held breath, as if the world was waiting.

Waiting for what?

Perhaps it was for the dreamer to wake up.

Deceit was still asleep, now clad in comfy yellow flannel pyjamas with little rubber duckies on them, because even creepy two-faced Dark Sides deserved comfortable pyjamas. He hadn’t woken up since he’d collapsed and there was no way Roman could have let him sleep in whatever he had been wearing at the time, considering the condition of his clothes and the circumstances, and ducks were adorable, unlike geese, which were terrible. All curled up under the covers, hair mussed and breathing calm, he looked so peaceful. Defenseless.

Doesn’t that just make you want to reach out... and choke the life out of him?

“REMUS!”

“ROMAN!” The Duke had to skip back a step to avoid getting impaled on the pointy end of a pointy sword. “Oh, are we not doing the thing where we scream each other’s names at each other? No? Ok.”

“What are you doing here!”

“Well...” he made a gesture toward the sleeping form in the bed and had to scamper back a couple more steps. “That is not the sword I want to be penetrated by right now. Next Thursday, though!” he whipped out a notebook and a flamboyant green quill as he relocated to the ceiling. “I think there is a gap in my schedule.”

Roman thought, gravity, because this was his room, and watched as his brother crashed back onto the ground. 

“Get out.”

“Shan’t!”

“I’m not letting you take him!”

Remus froze, before a huge grin spread across his face, eyes going wide in delight. “Ooooooooooooooooooooo! Someone’s got a crush! You know what’s really good for crushing? Anvils! Faaaaaaalling from the sky!”

No, no anvils, they dissolved into bubbles as they fell. Also, “No. What? Just because you have no standards, doesn’t mean I don’t.”

Remus poked a nearby bubble, making it fart, and suddenly all the bubbles were farting. “Oh Deceit, did you hear that?” he cackled.

Silence. The bubbles faded into motes of light, scattering and vanishing. And then, from behind him, the quiet rustle of sheets. 

“I didn’t mean it that way…” he wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

“Don’t worry, darling, he didn’t really mean it at all,” interjected Remus cheerfully. “But you knew that!”

It dawned upon Roman that he was presently standing between two of the Dark Sides, and though his sword was pointed firmly at his brother, his defenceless back was facing Deceit. He didn’t want to turn back (an ominous silence). He wasn’t dumb enough not to want to check   
(he didn’t want it to be true but). This could still be a trap (no. No no no no no).

Deceit sat on the bed, looking down at his fluffy yellow pyjamas, hair still sticking up every which way. Slowly, deliberately, he ran his bare fingers through his hair and pulled his bowler back on. As he put his gloves on, his clothes shifted back into his usual outfit until he was fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed. He steepled his fingers, head bowed. And said nothing.

“What is going on here?” asked Roman finally, waving the sword a tad too frantically for a swordsman of his caliber.

“This,” said Remus, gesturing dramatically at nothing in particular before pointing straight at Roman. “Is all your fault.”

“What? WHAT?!”

“Settle down, Princey! It’s STORYTIME!” 

Suddenly animated, Remus all but flung him onto the bed and conjured for himself a throne of living human appendages to recline on, resting his head indulgently on a disembodied pair of quivering breasts. On the bed, Deceit politely moved over so that they could both be comfortably seated, being careful to neither look at him nor touch him. 

He wasn’t sure why he noted that, or why it bothered him.

“Isn’t it funny how motorboating and shipping are both sexual?”

He was sure, however, that there would be no throne of human flesh in his room.

“You’re no fun, Roman,” pouted Remus as he was rudely interrupted in the middle of demonstrating the former. “You’re BORING. I bet you kept looking because you were looking to steal ideas from me!”

“I did not understand a single word of what you were saying,” Roman retorted. “As usual. And your ideas are shit. Literally.”

“Poopy dookie poo log face!” screamed Remus, and stamped his foot hard enough that he ripped right in half and fell over in two pieces. “Oh look at me, I’m falling apart. Literally. Better pull myself together, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Get to the point!”

“Then you’d better pick up your sword because I don’t know which point I’m supposed to get to!”

He nearly jumped up, but for the gloved hand on his arm, a quiet touch that brought him out of the moment. It never helped to react to everything Remus was doing. He of all people should have known by now, but he was also very, very tired and very, very confused. And angry.

And still, Deceit said nothing, merely staring at pieces of Remus on the floor until he pulled himself together with a huff into a cross-legged seated position.

“Dear Roman, you know how, when we spend time together, we start to... gain insight from one another?” Like echoes, or resonant frequencies. “And then y’all try to pretend that I don’t exist, and then the quantum entanglement thingy goes away?” A hangover, lasting months when it should have been hours, or at most days. 

“Uh, newsflash: We still all pretend that you don’t exist.”

“Not Thomas though!” Roman frowned at his brother, who grinned back manically. “Not anymore! Gotta be honest with himself, gotta acknowledge the darkness in himself, gotta stop... deceiving... himself.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Deceit flinch, but when he snuck a peek, it didn’t seem like he’d moved at all, his face an impassive mask.

“So we had to find a different way to break the connection. I mean, I was so disgusted by your banality that I tried to cut the link from my side immediately, but for some reason, you seemed to want to look at me.”

“Now that is absolutely a lie. I hate you and everything you do. Why would I ever want to look at you? It’s a lie, right, Deceit?”

“Just look at his face: you know it’s true.” A faint frown, lips pressed tightly together, eyes firmly averted, gloved hands clenching the sheets. “As to why, well, it must be sooooo hard to be you, all white bread and puppies and rainbows. Speaking of rainbows, if you cut up a puppy, you’ll find enough parts to make a decent rainbow! With a lot. A lot. Of red. And then you can make a sandwich with the white bread!”

“I know it’s not your strong suit, but can you focus?”

“Ooo, let me slip into my strong suit! You did say that we do our best thinking in the shower.”

Roman averted his eyes. “Underwear!”

“Mankini!” and oh, he didn’t think it could get worse but here they were.

“Bath robe!”

“Acceptable!” Of course, it was green and sparkled. Of course. The Duke cleared his throat, uncrossed and re-crossed his legs, clearly demonstrating that he was wearing nothing but the robe. “Where was I? Oh yes. In order to escape from your sad, beige life, you clung onto the link like the clingy needy bitch you are,” “I’m not clingy!” “so I thought, well, why not give him a show?”

“I’m not clingy!” insisted Roman. “Deceit! You know I’m telling the truth!”

That was almost a smile, but also a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.

“You know, Roman? For someone who keeps going on and on about how disgusting I am and how disgusted I make you, I thought it’d be easy. Do something normal, let you see it, have you hashtag ragequit hashtag life, and get my privacy back. But you. Kept. Looking!

“Oh, it was a CHALLENGE, it was such a great GAME! I had to try EVERYTHING, but you just kept LOOKING. You pervert.” He would have interjected but Remus was on a roll, on his feet now, pacing. “I didn’t get it. You’re vanilla. You’re so bland, the Irish farmers eating boiled potatoes with nothing would lick you and turn away because you’re that bland. But you kept looking. You threw a fit, you threw up, you threw out your carpet but you. KEPT. LOOKING.” The last words were an angry shout, but then Remus smiled suddenly, smugly, and pointed. “At him.”

He turned and he looked, on instinct, mind reeling at the exposition dump.

“So thank you for breaking it off with me, FI-NAL-LY, and thank you, Deceit, for all your help. Your sausages were particularly delicious. Now I just have to go iron my cat. Toodles! Oh I mean, my cat’s name is Toodles and he’s going to die today. Byeeeeeee!”

It felt. Like the air had been knocked right out of his lungs. Like the moment of stillness before the next breath. Like waking from a dream into a nightmare. He had to ask, even though he already knew, because he wanted the answer to be something other than what he knew was true.

“Were you ok with all of that?”

And finally, finally, Deceit opened his mouth, but all that came out were wet coughs that wracked his frame. Roman reached out instinctively, but froze in his tracks when Deceit’s head snapped up, mismatched eyes meeting his with the coldness and hardness of any serpent. 

“Perfectly. Fine.” mouthed Deceit, lips curling into a vicious grin, and then, he too was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.
> 
> I hope Deceit gets to feel better soon.


	3. Grounding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone needs a break, right?

To say he was worried was an understatement. It was so far under that they’d reached the other side of the planet and were continuing on toward the sun where they would crash and burn into atoms, whoever they were. Deep breaths, Virgil. At least his anxiety wasn’t directed towards Thomas, although there was a lot to worry about there too, considering one did not recover from the Duke in a day. Or ever, probably. They were going to be scarred for the rest of their lives, but hey, life was pain, better to just go lie in bed and do nothing until the sun dies.

Deep breaths.

This had nothing to do with the eventual heat death of the universe that would render all struggle moot and wow, that helped none. Brilliant. He’d chewed his lips until he tasted blood so now he was just trying to stem the bleeding so it wouldn’t be so obvious when he eventually had to go face the others again.

OR he could hide in his room for the rest of his life. That sounded like a sound plan!

NOT.

DEEP BREATHS. NOT SO FAST. DON’T HYPERVENTILATE. SHIT.

Five things you see. Five things! (ONE!) There were his wicked Tim Burton posters on the wall. (TWO!) Spiderwebs on the stairs. (THREE!) Spider curtains at the window! (FOUR!) A half finished cup of decaf on the coffee table. (FIVE) His spider taking a nap in the middle of her latest web (oh cool).

Four things you touch. (ONE) He played with the rips in his shirt, worrying the threads, feeling them rough against his fingers. (TWO) The carpet on the stairs, knobbly fabric except where footsteps over the years had worn the fibres smooth. (THREE) The railings, wood and paint, a chip here, perhaps inherent to the original tree. (Four) He didn’t feel like being on the floor anymore, and the couch was soft and sank under his weight.

Three things you hear. (One) His heartbeat, duh, too fast as usual, so what was new, but no, he had to concentrate on the sound. (Two) The music, Evanescence, that he’d tried to distract himself with earlier and he tried to distract himself now. (Three) How odd that he could hear the clock ticking from across the room.

Two things you smell. The decaf was cold, and smelled like fake coffee. His hoodie was warm and smelled like him.

One thing you taste. Well, he wasn’t going to freaking drink the decaf. He stood up to head for the kitchen to find something to taste, only to catch sight of a very familiar bowler hat and hands clad in yellow gloves.

“Holymotherofg… DECEIT!”

The immediate relief was immediately superceded by a barrage of questions and speculations, each worse than the previous one, and FREAKING DEEP BREATHS VIRGIL, and then go check on him, you DUMBASS.

“Hey,” he said, squatting down beside where Deceit had curled up into a ball on his kitchen floor. “It’s just you, right? The Duke’s not…” At the mention of the Duke, the ball of Deceit began to shake and Virgil dropped it.

This was bad. This was more than bad. Three months? The last time had only been a week and that had been bad enough. 

“Deceit? You can’t be here right now, not like this. My room is the worst freaking place to be right now, you hear me? Let’s go. Anywhere but here. Let’s go to your room, ok? But you’ve got to lead the way, because no one knows where that is, alright?”

When he touched him, he jumped, but allowed Virgil to take his shaking hand.

Deceit’s room was wherever he wanted it to be, and currently, it seemed that he wanted it to be very, very small and very, very well-hidden. Which Virgil could appreciate. The last time he had been in this room, it hadn’t looked like this, having been far more ostentatious and expansive. He hadn’t liked that room at all, and it was a relief that they were here instead. 

A bed, black sheets, a number of yellow pillows. He had always been grudgingly fond of the snake’s aesthetic. A bathroom through a door to the side, but no door that was an entrance or exit. A closet, with only one set of clothes inside when Virgil opened it to check: a set of yellow flannel pyjamas with rubber duckies printed on them. An odd choice, but they sure looked more comfortable than Deceit’s usual clothes.

Deceit was sitting on the bed, staring into space, fingers lacing and unlacing. 

“Are you alrig” yea, no, as if that wasn’t abundantly obvious, Virgil, seriously, are you an idiot? “How are you feeling right now?”

Deceit looked like he wanted to say something, brows creasing in frustration as his lips parted but no sound came out. Right, there was that. The whole Ariel situation, which could easily have been resolved by

“You got a pen and paper somewhere in this room?”

Pen and paper in hand, with Virgil encouragingly nodding beside him, Deceit put the pen to the paper. And stopped. He did it again, and again, he froze. And again and again and “Whoa, stop, you don’t have to if you can’t. It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok. You don’t have to do it now, you don’t have to do anything until you’re ready, alright? Cool? It’s ok, you can rest now. You can rest.”

He wasn’t good with hugs, or physical contact in general, but he could sit with Deceit and hold his hand until the silent tears stopped falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this whump? Did I write whump? I am. Very old.


	4. Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It gets worse

Five things you see:  
Roman’s horrified face  
Fingers moving toward your right eye  
Darkness that might be tinted red  
Your intestines being stuffed with your flesh  
Sausages 

Four things you touch:  
Blood, from many different sources  
The metal blades of the mincer  
Mince meat  
The fork for the sausage

Three things you hear:  
Bones getting ground up in the mincer  
Laughter  
The sounds of your screams

Two things you smell:  
Cum  
Sausages

One thing you taste:  
Yourself

He wakes up screaming.


	5. Inconvenient truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman has a dream and is asked to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly less manic and sleep deprived today.

The human side of Deceit's face was flushed, and even his scales felt warm to touch. He trailed kisses up the side of his face, feeling the soft skin, the brush of eyelashes on his lips, and tasted the sudden metallic tang of blood. He swallowed, and felt the viscous, jelly-like eyeball slide down his throat. The serpent eye could shed no tear, but flicked side to side, panicked, glancing at him and searching beyond him, a pool of darkness rimmed with yellow. "Stop looking at me like that," he heard himself say. "This is all your fault anyway."

They were in the courtroom, and he desperately wanted Deceit to win. But then Deceit had to say it, and everyone knew that Deceit was the villain, and the Prince could hardly show support for a known villain, could he? A Prince had to act with the honour and esteem of a hero. Even if it hurt. Even if he wanted something more than anything in the world, he could not want it more than being good.

Why did he have to be the good one?

He buried the thought.

Good people suffer.

He buried the thought.

Why couldn't he ever get what he wanted?

He tried to bury the thought, but he was running out of space, fragments of stray thoughts bursting to the surface like flowers. Or zombies. 

"Help me."

He looked down at the black earth, the shovel in his hand, and Deceit half buried, one yellow-gloved hand reaching out. 

"You deserve this," he heard his own voice say. 

Deceit opened his mouth and he watched that poisonous tongue get devoured by squirming maggots, until the screaming was replaced by choking and he completed the burial.

In the mirror was the Prince, chin up, chest out, smiling. His fingernails were not caked with dirt, his mouth was not covered in blood and vitreous humour. He stared at himself in the mirror, at the Prince, and the Prince laughed, "Ha ha ha. A mirror? Have you looked at yourself lately?"

He looked down and his clothes were black and green and the Prince was pressed against the glass of the mirror, grinning dementedly and asking, "Are you really a good person?"

At his feet, Deceit looked up at him, or at least, what was left of Deceit looked up at him, everything below the waist a tangled mess of intestines. "How are you ok with this?" asked the remains of Deceit.

"This is a dream, none of this is real," he told the remains at his feet.

"Just because it's not real, doesn't mean it's not true," replied Deceit, producing a needle of bone and thread of sinew.

He took them from those yellow-gloved hands and started suturing Deceit's mouth shut.

"I'm not a bad person. This is all your fault. You deserve this. I'm sorry. Nobody deserves this. This was not your fault. I am not a bad person."

"I AM NOT A BAD PERSON!"

It was one of those nightmares, the kind that left you jerking awake as if trying to distance yourself from it as fast as you possibly can, as if it were possible to run away from your own mind. His pyjamas were soaked through with sweat and he buried his face in his knees, as if closing his eyes would stop him from seeing images in his head. They faded as he awakened, and he was torn between needing to remember the message and wanting to forget the horror. 

There were no more "insights": this nightmare was entirely his, the natural consequence of the horrors he'd been forced to witness. He'd honestly thought that he would feel better if he knew why they did what they did, but no, it was still terrible.

There was a knock on his door, which was the polite way of letting another Side know when visiting, and then Virgil was rising up in his room, apparently too impatient to wait another second. 

"Hi. Found Deceit, need your help, let's go," said Virgil, the shadows under his eyes looking darker than ever. 

"Uh." 

"Can't get Patton, I love him, but he,” Virgil stopped abruptly, looking utterly horrified. “I mean, Patton’s great but he can be overbearing in his love. Can't get Logan, because he has no human empathy and will probably makes things worse." He paused again, pinching the bridge of his nose as if having a headache. “Nope, I can’t say anything nicer than that right now.”

Roman held his arms up. “What… is going on?”

“Long story short? Deceit is not functioning, and he doesn’t seem to be able to fix himself like the last time.”

“The last time?”

Virgil rolled his eyes to the sky, pressed his hands together and took a deep breath. “Back in the day, when I was still…” 

“A Dark Side?” he regretted it the moment he said it and Virgil glared at him.

“When I still wasn’t friends with you guys yet, there was a period of time when your brother,” and those two words were spat out like they physically tasted bad, “was putting in a lot of overtime, and Deceit had to step in, because, of course you know, his job is to hide the evidence and keep us… them all hidden. I don’t actually know what really happened, and honestly, I never want to know, because whatever it was, when he got back, he was… he was not himself. But he was back to normal the next day, pretending that nothing ever happened, and I thought that was what was gonna happen but he’s still… out of it.”

It was Roman’s turn to take a deep breath because, while it sounded bad, “Well, this is Deceit we are talking about, are you sure that he’s not just… pretending?”

“Lie to me.”

“What?”

“Go on, try it.”

The first thought to flash through his mind was, I don’t want this to be real. The second was, I know what happened to him. And the third was, I watched and did nothing. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Those were not the things he wanted to say, and he was drawing a blank as far as lies went.

“What’s wrong, Roman? Can’t do it?”

“It’s not… what if I… just don’t… want… to… lie that I can’t do it?” That was bad, but, “What exactly do you expect me to do about it?” 

“I don’t know? You’re Creativity! You can come up with some ideas? Workshop it with him?”

What could he do? How did one recover from something like that? Did he even want t… he wanted to. He wanted to do something to help, he really did, because it would be like… like redeeming himself, you know? But what was there that he could do in this situation?

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Virgil grabbed him by the front of his pyjamas and stared him in the eye. “Until Deceit is fixed, there’s no comforting lies, no half-truths, no deception, no pretending not to know that life is a meaningless struggle where all your accomplishments will be rendered moot within a lifetime or two, so please, Roman. Try.”

“...let me change?”


	6. The Little Mermaid Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They try to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could it be? Things are getting better?

Deceit was wearing the pyjamas he created. He wasn’t sure why that made him happy, but he found himself grinning goofily at the sight of it. Deceit, however, looked much less than pleased to see him, lips pressed into a flat line.

“Deal with it,” Virgil replied, answering the unasked question, casually returning Deceit’s rude gesture with 2 birds of his own. “Would you have preferred either of the other two? No? Didn’t think so.”

He had never been inside Deceit’s room before, which was less of a room and more like a mind-palace type of thing. It was much smaller than he’d expected, and sparsely furnished, as if it had been made in a hurry and never completed. It didn’t even have a door, though it did have a rather sizable closet. The walls and ceiling were all black, and he thought that it might look good with a few stars, maybe a galaxy, to make it less morose and more magical. 

“Uh, Roman?” He turned to look at Virgil, who was giving him a weird look. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, oops, I thought I was just thinking it but I was actually doing it.” The galaxy paint did make the room seem bigger and since he was already doing it, he threw on some constellations for the heck of it.

“I know you think you’re a Disney prince, but you need to get down with the whole ‘consent’ thing.”

It was just a throwaway comment, a reference to something they’d discussed before a long time ago, but suddenly, all he could picture was Deceit, glassy eyed and shaking, reaching out for his help that he never gave.

“Sorry.” Obviously, Virgil had expected him to protest, but he was right. It wasn’t right to just barge into a person’s space and just start changing things. “I’ll set it back now.”

Virgil narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously, then looked over at Deceit, who was looking up thoughtfully at the newly added galaxy. “Well, he seems to like it,” he grudgingly observed.

“I guess if he didn’t like it, he’d say so.”

“Uh, yea, no. We have a, uh, Little Mermaid situation going on here.”

Deceit looked so offended, he couldn’t help laughing. “And did we try the pen and the…”

“The pen and the paper, yea, it didn’t go too well.” 

They both got pelted with paper balls, which, admittedly, they deserved. 

“Is it any better now?” asked Virgil, addressing Deceit. Deceit was sulking, but made an attempt to write in the notepad. He got as far as putting the pen to the paper before he froze, looking exceedingly unhappy. "Okay, so we're not there yet. Still, you're looking better." 

How odd. Not being able to speak was one thing, but being unable to even write? Even odder, though, was the way Deceit submitted to Virgil's examination, sitting crosslegged on top of the covers, a cheerful splash of yellow on the black sheets, obligingly tilting his head up to look Virgil in the eye. He wondered what kind of history they had together, for Deceit to have sought out Virgil for help when they'd always seemed at loggerheads. Or perhaps he was reading too much into it, considering the options. 

Absently, he smoothed out the paper ball in his hand and glanced at it. There was some sort of writing on it. As he lifted up to have a better look, it was snatched from his hand. "What the…"

"What's that?" While Deceit had snatched it from him, now Virgil snatched the paper from Deceit and looked at it. "Oh," was all he said, jovial mood entirely gone.

Deceit, on his end, had tucked his knees up and scooted backwards away from the two of them, as far as the bed would allow. 

He was going to ask, but Virgil handed him the paper wordlessly. On the white notepad paper in crisp black ink, were words that had been violently crossed out: 

"Nothing happened, I'm fine."

"I'm sorry," he found himself saying and Deceit shot him a sharp look. 

"Well, Princey, I hope you get some ideas soon," said Virgil, shrugging helplessly. "Because I'm out."

And then there were two.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air between them. Deceit had re-materialised his hat and gloves, though he kept the pyjamas this time and made no move to leave the bed. On the floor was strewn more balled up pieces of paper, and he cautiously picked a couple up to confirm that the writing was almost the same every time. Some had the complete phrase, some had fragments, but every one was violently scribbled out, sometimes with a force that tore the paper.

No use leaving them around, he supposed. Clutter in the mind space often made it hard to form coherent thoughts, after all. Conjuring up a wastepaper basket, he started picking up the pieces. 

He ought to say something, if only to break the oppressive silence. Silence? "It must be rough, being unable to speak. How's your throat?"

It was a mistake, he realised even as the words left his mouth and he was left picturing the state Deceit was in when he'd found him not two days ago. The same thought seemed to have occurred to Deceit, who'd clapped his gloved hands over his mouth as he heaved. 

Conveniently, he had a wastepaper basket, and Deceit caught it in time to throw up into it, coughing and choking. "I'm sorry," he offered lamely, pulling a glass of water out of thin air.

"Is there anything you want me to do that you think might help?" he asked. 

On the blank wall behind him, a door appeared, with a bright green exit sign posted prominently on top of it. Deceit mimed turning the door knob, and the door swung open, an invitation as clear as day for him to get out.

The door opened into a brick wall.

Was… was this a joke? He turned to see if Deceit was having a laugh at his expense, but he seemed as surprised as Roman was to see what was behind the door. Surprise turned to dismay, which he tried to school back into neutrality without any success, finally burying his face in his hands instead. 

"Hey, it's…" alright, he wanted to say, but the word stuck in his throat, because it wasn't true. He contemplating reaching out, but reconsidered, sitting down on the floor beside the bed instead, back toward the bed. "I'm sorry," he found himself saying for the third time that day. "I'm sorry about everything that happened. I'm sorry that I didn't… I didn't try to save you earlier." That was hard to say.

"I mean, I thought that you might have had some kind of agreement with Remus, or that the two of you were pranking me," he felt a sudden movement on the bed, a soft breath, almost a sigh, but didn't dare look back. "But I should at least have tried instead of assuming.

"Honestly, I still have my doubts. You're Deceit, after all. You've always been a fantastic actor, but because of that, it's really hard for me to tell what is real and what is just what you want me to think is real. Because that's what you do. You mess with us, you hide things from us, you make us hide things from one another. But you look like you really need help right now, and I want to help you. Somehow. If I can."

He looked up, up at the ceiling he'd painted, because he wasn't quite prepared to look behind him. He'd said his piece, for better or for worse. With the galaxy above them, the silence felt far more calm, and he could almost imagine that they were sitting outside, at night, far away from everything. He turned at the movement on the bed, and found himself face to face with Deceit.

He jumped, like, literally a foot.

"Holy…!"

Deceit, too, had jumped back, and Roman was momentarily worried about the shaking until he realised that the little bastard was giggling. 

It was such a relief. He pulled out a yellow handkerchief, passing it to the laughing Deceit to wipe up his tears. 

"Hey, how are you feeling now?"

Deceit shook his head. Even though he was smiling faintly, it was like the tears wouldn't stop. Roman reached out, clearly telegraphing his action so that Deceit could refuse if he wanted to, Virgil's rebuke about consent still fresh in his mind. He wasn't sure what he hoped to achieve, but his version of comfort was based on touch and that was all he could try. 

The human side of Deceit's face was flushed, hot under his fingers as he thumbed away the tears. How easy would it be to dig his thumb in and pop out his eyeball?

Roman gasped, instinctively wanting to pull away, but what kind of message would that send? Mismatched eyes looked up at him, wary and questioning, and he forced himself to look back, reminding himself that the wetness under his hand was tears and not blood. Those eyes widened, as if with the realisation of what had been brought to mind, and Deceit grabbed his wrist, the action panicked and desperate. But then he too paused, not pulling Romans hand away from his face, from his eye, but just holding it. 

"I'm sorry." He'd lost count of how many times he'd already said it today, and lost track of what he was apologising for. Deceit shut his eyes when Roman touched them again, body tensing, breathing fast and shallow, but still not pulling away. Roman completed his sweep over the wet lashes and let his hand come to rest against Deceit's cheek. "It's alright." 

The death grip on his wrist loosened and he took the opportunity to conjure up another handkerchief, dabbing gently at the reddened face while Deceit tried to recover his breathing. Deceit reached up at him, a tentative, abortive action, and it was only then that Roman realised his own face was also wet. 

What a pair of them. 

"May I?" He asked before he flopped backward crosswise onto the bed. The mattress was softer than he'd expected, and the motion caused Deceit to tumble and half-sprawl on him. "I'm sorr…"

One gloved hand covered his mouth, cutting him off. Deceit huffed slightly, making it clear that he was done listening to that, before committing to the sprawl, doffing his hat to rest his head on Roman's chest.

It felt… peaceful. Also like a rather large cat had decided to lie on him, but mostly peaceful. From his angle, all that he could see was the back of Deceit's head, but even then, he could see that some of the tension had gone. It was a fragile and precarious respite, but he'll take it.


	7. After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth.

He looked up at the stars twinkling in the ceiling, wisps of red clouds drifting lazily by, blown by an unseen wind, and marvelled at the imagination used to create the scene. Three walls were now the sea, stretching into the horizon, islands in the distance, dyed in shades of maroon, purple and grey. Behind them, behind the bed, a mast and sails, a fine ship sailing the wine dark waves. They were not quite paintings, perhaps more akin to the pop culture idea of holograms, the perspective distorting when not directly observed, resolving only to the viewer. If he could look past the furnishings in the room, the table, the door, the closet, he could almost imagine that they were outside, far, far away from everybody and everything. 

If he could accept that little lie.

He felt broken. The fundamental core of his existence was no longer functioning, and everything seemed too sharp, too bright. If Deceit could not lie, then what was left? What was he? 

He was unbearably happy.

His purpose had always been to keep the truth hidden, to dull the sharp edges, to swaddle the spikes, to render them harmless and inert. Big truths, small truths, petty truths, painful truths, he’d collect them and hide them. If they cut him or pricked him or stabbed him, he’d hold on to them anyway, because it was his job. If it was his role to be the villain, he’d revel in it, because it was the reason for his existence.

It was enough. Until it wasn’t. Until he realised that no matter how much he did to protect them, to help them, it would never be enough. Up until then, he thought he knew pain. Pain was normal, evidenced by the scars that criss-crossed his hands, punishment for performing the duty he was created to do, for daring to exist. But the knowledge that he had to sit outside the light and watch hurt more than anything he had ever experienced.

But he was happy now, so happy that it felt like his heart would burst, so happy that it didn’t matter that everything hurt. That for once in his life he was being treated with care and not scorn. He was unbearably happy, lying here on the bed, clothed in kindness, the softness of the flannel against his skin, the comforting scent of fresh laundry and Roman. He would walk on knives and be the voiceless Little Mermaid, if he could have just this much.

If only it didn’t also feel like he was driving a knife through the Prince’s heart.

He knew the shape of those nightmares, the nightmares that he had helped create, that even now caused the Prince to cry out in his sleep. The shape of the truth tore at him, lodging in his throat, the truth that he would have received none of this if he had not been complicit in inflicting these terrors on the Prince. For what had he been but complicit? 

Remus had been right.

As if summoned, the doors of the closet swung open to admit the Duke, rising like some dread monster from the painted waves.

“Well,” asked the Duke in a parody of coyness. “Did you get what you wanted?”

And that was the awful truth, the truth that had been too big for him to bear, that yes, he did want this, after all his hubris and all of his lies had been stripped away, ground into ashes, fed to the dogs. When he had been torn to pieces, ripped apart, peeled and grated and devoured, when all of his defenses were dismantled, his final recourse was to take his own voice to prevent this truth from coming to light. And yet. Yet. Here it was, laid bare.

He felt sick, sick to his stomach, sick to the bone. Because Remus had been right. Because no matter what they were doing, no matter how much he wanted to escape into his own mind, to escape from the reality of his situation, all it would take was a glimpse of Roman to send him crashing back down into himself to experience the full brunt of the sensations.

_"Hey, did you know? You tighten up every time you see him watching."_

If he were the only one who had to bear the nightmares, he might have been able to bear it, but even though he was the only one who was physically tortured, he wasn’t the only one who was hurt. 

He was, however, the only one who had chosen to be.

The Little Mermaid. Virgil had meant it as a joke. People often forgot the ending of the original story.

He thought he should have been afraid or upset, but he felt suddenly calm. “No,” he replied, “I got everything I wanted.”

Remus looked momentarily perplexed before realising what had happened.

Deceit, for he was, once again, Deceit, looked down at the sleeping prince, down at the yellow flannel pyjamas, down at the silk handkerchiefs, and took off his gloves. He placed his hands against Roman’s troubled face and reached into himself, tapping into the core of what he was.

“Nothing happened,” he pronounced. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

And The Duke’s actions, which only had as much substance as the belief put into it, vanished, leaving no trace, no scars, just a faint echo of a memory.

The frown on Roman’s face faded with the nightmares, and all the memories with it. For him, it would seem a strange dream, swiftly forgotten come morning. He would wake up in his own bed, refreshed, and as if nothing had happened, because nothing did.

“Poor Deceit, who can’t ever be honest with what he wants. I was rooting for you, you know?”

“I don’t understand what you are saying, Remus,” said Deceit with an air of over-acted concern. “Do go on telling me what I want?” He waved his fingers and slammed the closet door shut, vanishing the closet with the Duke in it.

Then he sat on the bed and stared at the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind."
> 
> \- The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Anderson
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this insane monster of a fic. To help with the interpretation, just know that:  
> 1) everything Remus says is true  
> 2) everything Deceit verbally says is false  
> 3) every action Deceit performs is indicative of his present true feelings toward the situation.


End file.
